It’s time for retailers to start placing their orders for the items that will be on shelves during this holiday season, but one thing may be different from last year: they may be ordering less merchandise on consignment after millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise was stuck in legal limbo during the bankruptcy of big-box sporting goods retailer Sports Authority. [More]

We have no idea why you would want to buy a gift card to Sports Authority right now. The big-box sports retailer, with 460 stores across the country, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and is liquidating and closing all of its stores starting on Wednesday. If you did want to buy one, today is the last day, and the stores will stop accepting gift cards on June 26 June 28. [More]

One of L.A.’s most well-known boutique chains — a relic of the “glory days” of reality TV — is no longer peddling pricey blouses, pants, and accessories to the semi-famous, with Kitson shutting down all 17 of its stores, and its online business.[More]

Hey, buddy. Want to rent an abandoned Radio Shack? The quasi-relevant electronics chain received approval from the bankruptcy court today to sell off 1,100 store leases. These stores are open for bidding by anyone interested in taking over the lease––in some locations, Radio Shack has already held store-closing sales and taken off so they won’t have to pay rent in March. [More]

Where will all of the women in the world shop for quality clothes at good prices? Fine, there are plenty of other clothiers, but that doesn’t make the demise of Coldwater Creek any less sad. The stores aren’t closing just yet, but that will be the next step after the retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. [More]

Liquidators hired to clean out a closing retail store sell everything, down to the equipent and fixtures. Well, theoretically they do. Jay bought a handtruck from a closing Borders store, paid in advance, and was told to stop by the store to pick up the purchase later that month when the store actually closed. When he did, the store had closed, and all of the fixtures were gone, along with the liquidators.

Mark Calisi, 47, who owns Eagle Auto-Mall in Riverhead, New York, says he was “devastated” to learn that his dealership would be closed. He said Chrysler accounts for a third of his business, which also sells Volvo, Mazda and Kia, and that on Thursday he had to sack 30 of his 100 employees.

CNN Money has posted an informative article about what happens at liquidation sales. Some of the people quoted are fairly critical, but even the liquidation company execs that are quoted admit that a liquidation sale doesn’t exist for the benefit of the consumer. Here are the highlights.

Plans to auction off Linens ‘n Things were scrapped Monday night, says the Wall Street Journal, dooming the housewares retailer to liquidation by the end of the year. Apparently, no bidder was willing to offer more than the 475.5 million dollars offered by a group of liquidators who wanted to shut the retailer down.

Last week, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General filed a consumer protection lawsuit against the PA-based company Pure Weight Loss and its owner, Vahan Karian. Pure Weight Loss, which has about 400 stores nationwide, announced last December that it was going out of business, and yet continued to accept pre-payment from unaware customers up to four days after posting the announcement on its website. Since closing, it has failed to reimburse customers fees for unfulfilled contracts or deliver the supplies they’ve already bought.